Sensation & Perception Flashcards
What is sensation?
The detection of physical energy by sense organs, which then send information to the brain
What is perception?
The brain’s interpretation of raw sensory inputs
What is transduction?
The process of converting an external energy to substance into neural energy
What is a sense receptor?
A specialised cell responsible for converting external stimuli into neural activity for a specific sensory system
What is absolute threshold?
The lowest level of a stimulus needed for the nervous system to detect a change 50% of the time
What is just noticeable difference (JND)?
The smallest change in the intensity of a stimulus that we can detect
What is the signal detection theory?
The psychophysical theory which describe the detection of stimuli under conditions of uncertainty
What is cross-modal processing?
The mixing of senses across brain areas
What are some examples of cross-modal processing?
McGurk effect
Rubber hand illusion
Synaesthesia
What is selective attention?
The process of selecting one sensory channel and ignoring or minimising the others
True or False: perception is an exact translation of our sensory experiences into neural activity
False
True or False: in signal detection theory, false alarms and misses help us to measure hoe much someone is paying attention
False
True or False: cross-modal activation often helps us to process information more accurately
True
True or False: selective attention may blind us to what is happening right in front of our noses
True
True or False: synchronised alpha oscillations (8-12Hz) in different regions of the cortex are used by the brain to coordinate separate processing activities (the binding problem)
False
What is brightness?
The intensity of the reflected light that reaches our eyes
What is hue?
The colour of light lenses
What is accommodation (perception)?
Changing the shape of the lens to focus on objects near or far
What is the fovea?
The part of the retina where light rays are most sharply focused. Only contains cones
What is acuity?
The sharpness of vision
What is the photopigment in rods?
Rhodopsin
What are ganglion cells?
Nerve cells that transmit visual information from the eye to the brain
What is the trichromatic theory?
The idea that colour vision is based on our sensitivity to three different colours (blue, green and red)
How many different types of cones are there?
Three
What is the opponent process theory?
The idea that we perceive colour as either red or green, or as either blue or yellow
What is blindsight?
The remarkable phenomenon in which people with cortical blindness can make correct guesses about things in their environment, even though they cannot see them
What is visual agnosia?
A deficit in perceiving objects; they can see the object but are unable to identify it correctly
True or False: the visible spectrum of light differs across species and can differ across individuals
True
True or False: the lens of the eye changes shape depending on whether lighting conditions are bright or dim
False
True or False: although we perceive objects as unified wholes, different parts of our brain process different kinds of visual information, such as shape, colour and motion
True